A wild Steam challenger appeared: Epic Games Store

A wild Steam challenger appeared: Epic Games Store

Just a few years ago, if you wanted to purchase a videogame on PC, you almost certainly were going to do it through Valve's Steam Store. Steam was the undisputed king of the gaming world. Today, that scenario is no longer a reality. Between the Microsoft Store, Discord Store, EA Origin, and more, Valve has never seen so much competition.

One thing that is consistent across the majority of the current game stores (with the exception of publisher-owned stores) is that the platforms take a large cut of the sale. For example, on Steam, publishers get only 70 percent of the game's sale. On the Microsoft Store, publishers get 80 percent of the game's sale. This large percentage is part of why companies like EA have built their own launchers and stores to eliminate the margin loss.

This week, another game store has come to try and challenge Steam, while addressing the concerns of publishers. Building on their unbelievable success with Fortnite, Epic Games has announced the Epic Games Store. Not only did they announce it, they launched it publicly. The feature that will set Epic apart is the 88 percent that publishers get to keep. A 12 percent cost of goods is amazingly low, so there is a possibility that they could succeed here.

This is not Epic's first challenge to traditional game distribution. When they released Fortnite for Android, they eschewed Google's Play Store entirely, preferring instead to distribute directly from their website. For most people, this installation method was new and scary, as they had to turn off some security features on Android (at least during the installation process). What they found was that people were willing to take the risk in order to get the game.

That is an important aspect of developing a new storefront: getting people to use it. If they can attract publishers through their lower margin and attract gamers with the quality or quantity of games, they might actually have a chance in an increasingly competitive marketplace.